The Colorado Springs Gazette final

From guns to garden tools

Guns transformed into gardening tools

BY HUGH JOHNSON hugh.johnson@gazette.com

Chauncey Johnson, who has lost loved ones to gun violence, hits the barrel of a gun with during a vigil Thursday in response to gun violence at Grace and St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church. The barrel and hammer were provided by Rawtools, who gave community members a cathartic opportunity to help turn it into a mattock.

Fred Martin’s son, Mike, had the idea to bring a Bible verse from Isaiah into modern times.

“He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore,” Isaiah 2:4 reads.

After the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., Mike founded Rawtools with the vision of turning guns into gardening tools.

Nearly a decade later, Rawtools was on hand Thursday evening at the Grace and St. Stephen’s Church in downtown Colorado Springs in a vigil for victims of the recent mass shootings in Buffalo, N.Y., Laguna Woods, Calif., and Uvalde, Texas.

The incident that unfolded in Uvalde bears an eerie similarity to Sandy Hook.

“(It’s) sickening. It’s such a tragedy,” Fred Martin said of the shooting at Robb Elementary in Texas. “It’s like we weren’t making an effort to stop this. We need to be more vocal, more out there, and we’re saying there’s a better way to handle this than having weapons. We need more gun control.”

The event, co-hosted by moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, had no program and no scheduled speakers. It was just a chance for people in engage with others, take a swing of the blacksmithing hammer from Rawtools, or speak to clergy members and trained listeners.

Claire Elser, one of the associate clergy at the church, said she was rocking her daughter

Ruth the other night while thinking about the other 19 Uvalde mothers who won’t ever get to do the same.

“I think it’s an important witness for our church to stand up for the powerless and for nonviolence,” she said of the vigil. “I love the visual of Isaiah Swords into Plowshares.”

The crew at Rawtools uses a propane-fueled forge to hammer out firearm pieces from rifles and shotguns into mattocks, tilling forks, spades and three-pronged rakes.

RAW is WAR spelled backward, Martin said.

“We’re taking something that takes life and we turn it into something that sustains life,” he said.

To that end, the group takes in guns either through donation or the state buyback programs and melts them into tools. Rawtools rewards donors with a tool and a gift card depending on the size and value of the firearm. Rifles typically make three or four tools, whereas revolvers make just one.

According to Martin, the goal is to get people to realize that there are more ways to respond to opposition and adversity than just through violence.

Julie Carr, a volunteer with Moms Demand Action who joined in 2015, said the group is the largest grassroots gun-violence prevention organization in the U.S., and it focuses on all facets of gun violence including mass shootings, suicides and police gun violence. The group works with elected officials to pass “gun sense” bills, Carr said.

“Our children deserve to be able to go to school with safety. We should be able to shop at the grocery store without fear, drive our cars without wondering who’s gonna pull a gun at the red light,” she said.

Amid the political polarization the gun debate brings, Carr said the path forward is move forward together with creative, out-of-the-box thinking.

When asked how she navigates the legislative work Moms Demand Action does with her personal desire for unity and moving forward together, Carr said “gun sense” bills are supported by a majority of Americans.

“The majority of Americans support common-sense gun laws,” she said. “That’s simple background checks on every gun sale, that’s red-flag laws so that law enforcement or a loved one can remove a firearm from someone when they’re threatening to harm themselves or someone else. These are not policies that the majority of American disagree with.”

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2022-05-27T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-05-27T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://daily.gazette.com/article/282656101077551

The Gazette, Colorado Springs